Threshold of Faith EP

Assisted by Steve Albini, the Australian-born, Iceland-based electronic musician summons a gargantuan, apocalyptic din—one that is occasionally tripped up by its own bombast.

Threshold of Faith, the new EP from the Australian-born, Iceland-based composer Ben Frost, opens with a cheeky bit of studio debris. Before slamming you with exquisitely rendered kick drums and buzzing, synthetic avalanches, we hear something more quotidian: an engineer (presumably Steve Albini, who recorded Threshold), letting Frost know that “we’re rolling.” Like the four clicks from the drummer or a count-in caught on a room mic, this bit of ephemera is the type of thing one encounters on countless rock records, often left in as a point of scrappy pride. One does not expect it from Frost, though, an artist whose reputation rests on his immaculate, austere touch.

It’s an interesting moment—you might not assume this music was even recorded in a studio, much less with microphones. Frost’s textures live on the cutting edge of the digital, often overlapping with the gargantuan palettes so popular in our post-Michael Bay Hollywood. Taken at face value, Threshold sounds like it could exist entirely in the computer, an object expertly constructed in the endless world of software automation. But when you consider his obsession with the physicality of sound, its presence, depth, and force, the pairing with Albini makes sense. Both as an engineer and a musician, Albini is an icon for a type of inscrutable purity, as arresting as it is emotionally cooled. Ben Frost fans here may nod their heads in recognition.

Once the music begins, though, it’s impossible to discern, or even care, how it was made. Frost has a knack for grabbing attention, and you can’t ignore the lurching assault of the opening title track, which heaves, crumbles, and explodes with enough bravado to soundtrack the apocalypse. I couldn’t help but be reminded of [this infamous Godzilla trailer recut with a Wolf Eyessong; Frost would sound great in a monster movie. But as the piece unfolds, new layers emerge. Over six-and-a-half minutes, “Threshold of Faith” descends into its own storm, moving from heroic vistas into a garbled, snow-blinded melee. Distant choral pads, a glistening upper-register sheen, submerged piano, and groaning harmonies all stack up into a geologic crescendo that extends into infinity. “Eurydice’s Heel” continues this mood by trimming some layers and opening up space. The recurring bass dives call back to Jóhann Jóhannsson’s soundtrack for Sicario, while the cavernous drones on top could have been made in collaboration with Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Both that group and that soundtrack share with Frost a tendency for bombast, however: a humorless view of the world that risks veering into deflating self-seriousness. Throughout Threshold, Frost continually brushes against this barrier. Whether scrambled or restrained, there’s a preciousness and an egoism here that’s difficult to shake. As impressive as Frost’s music is, he seems always a bit too eager to impress, a sure turn-off. It’s less a matter of the parts Frost writes, which are often lovely and/or awesomely grand, and more in the way he frames them. The atmosphere that this music breathes feels finessed to the point of airlessness: The dulcimer plucks of “Threshold of Faith (Your Own Blood)” merge into a sustained mass that practically insists on awe, while “All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated - Albini Swing Version” bathes in high-end reverb trails and pregnant pauses which feel strangely unearned (the titles don’t help). We hear exactly who Ben Frost wants us to think he is but get precious little view of the man behind the persona.

This doesn’t mean it’s all for naught—“The Beat Don’t Die in Bingo Town” is a tasty 2:36 of fluttering exhaust, the kind of beauty-in-decay detritus that Arca expertly wove on Mutant. “Mere Anarchy” uses wounded pitch bending and rich, simple chords to close things out on a more open-ended tone. Nonetheless, for all its hubbub, Threshold of Faith feels oddly hollow, a work by hemmed in by its own presumptions of importance.